Author: Adam Kotsko

Fans of nasal mumbling will be thrilled to learn that this week I am featured on not one, but two podcasts: the Political Theology Network’s Assembly, where I discuss Carl Schmitt with Amaryah Armstrong and Zac Settle, and Grad School Vonnegut, where I discuss Kurt Vonnegut’s first published short story, “Report on the Barnstrom Effect” (and HBO’s Watchmen) with Gerry Canavan and Aaron Bady.

I received my translator copies of Agamben’s The Kingdom and the Garden yesterday. You can order a copy here — in my view it is one of the most original of Agamben’s works since The Use of Bodies, of particular interest to students of theology.

Over at An und für sich, we are having a book event on Thomas Lynch’s Apocalyptic Political Theology. You can find the introductory post here, and you can follow the subsequent posts using either this tag or checking the schedule at the end of the introduction, which will be updated with links as each post appears.

I have a new article up at Boston Review on the idea that academics have failed to “make the case” for their value

I’m very pleased with the cover of my forthcoming monograph Agamben’s Philosophical Trajectory, which is due to be released in September. The photo depicts the group who attended Heidegger’s seminar at Le Thor in 1968, a formative experience for Agamben.

My course “Reading the Qur’an” is finished for the semester, and so is the corresponding blog series. Below is an index of blog posts; you may also want to consult the syllabus.

• Introduction to an Occasional Series
• Background Work
• Training Wheels
• Repeated Reminders
• Muhammad and Moses
• Moving to Medina
• The Seal of the Prophets

I have now begun studying the Qur’an in Arabic, so keep an eye on the tag for some further extra-curricular reflections!

At the author’s request, I have posted a translation of Agamben’s indirect response to the controversy surrounding his earlier article about the response to coronavirus in Italy.

The New Republic has published a piece of mine on Tea Party originator Rick Santelli’s latest edifying contribution to public discourse — the suggestion that we should intentionally infect the population with coronavirus and get it over with.

Assuming all goes well in terms of global pandemics, I have a couple speaking engagements scheduled in March.

The first will be in the context of a seminar I co-organized with Frances Restuccia for the American Comparative Literature Association’s national conference in Chicago (March 19-22) on Agamben’s Later Works. My paper, entitled “Agamben’s Vegetative Theology,” will use Agamben’s two most recent publications, Autoritratto nello studio (Self-Portrait in His Studio) and Il Regno e il Giardino (The Kingdom and the Garden), to ask whether Agamben maintains a “theological” position and what that might mean in the context of his work. (UPDATE: This conference has unfortunately been cancelled, but a version of my paper will eventually appear in print.)

The second will be at a conference on “The Undercommons and Destituent Power” at Indiana University-Bloomington (March 26-28), which aims to bring black studies into dialogue with Agamben and other adjecent thinkers. My paper here will also be on Agamben, providing some background on his concept of destituent power and how it fits into his project. (UPDATE: The same holds for this conference, sadly….)

The Theology and Continental Philosophy programming unit of the American Academy of Religion has put together a great call for papers this year, in my humble opinion as co-chair. You don’t have to be a member to submit proposals.